The First to Know

by Abigail Johnson

  I’d have done that, but I couldn’t do this. I needed my sister, mad or happy or any other extreme save absent.

  “Dana!”

  I lifted my head to see Mom gleefully holding up a novelty candle that spelled out the word old.

  “He’ll hate it, right? I’m getting it.” Into the cart it went. I could see her steps get lighter after that, as she was no doubt thinking up more ways to tease Dad. “Oh, and I’ll finally get to see what you got him. What did you call it, the gift to end all gifts?”

  I heard my answer like it was coming from another room. “Yeah, I think I have to get something else. It didn’t work out the way I thought.”

  She rubbed my arm. “He’ll love anything you give him—you know that right?”

  “Sure, Mom. I’m just gonna go grab him a movie up front. Then I’ll meet you at the register.”

  Chapter 39

  “Hey,” Jessalyn said when I pulled in next to her car at school the next morning.

  “Hey,” I said, reaching to grab my bag from the passenger seat and moving wearily since I’d barely slept the night before. Then I said it again, “Hey!” and that time I had guilt invigorating me. “I was going to call you or come by yesterday. I meant to, honest.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I know you said you weren’t mad—”

  “I’m not. Not even a little.” I closed my door and turned right back to her. “I was just surprised.”

  She looked down at her hands. “That’s fair.”

  I made a face when we both lapsed into silence. I’d let her spend a whole day thinking I was upset with her, and now she was acting like I needed to forgive her for something, which was so not Jessalyn. I made another face, but one that was solely directed at myself. I was maybe the teensy-tiniest bit more than shocked at seeing them together, but that was only because all my emotions were tainted lately—joy with guilt, anger with grief, love with loneliness. Jessalyn with Nick, there wasn’t anything bad about that, and neither of them had anything to feel guilty about.

  “Jess, Nick couldn’t do any better.”

  Her eyes lifted first, then her head. “Yeah?”

  “I mean, I play way better than you, but he’s not really into sports, so—” I broke off when she shoved me, laughing.

  “You wish.”

  “Hey, if Nick’s fine with a subpar player for a girlfriend, then that’s all that matters.”

  “Subpar. Subpar?”

  I shrugged, biting back a smile. “Mediocre?” Then I snapped my fingers. “Oh, wait, pedestrian!” My hands flew up to block when she came at me, because teasing or not, Jessalyn could knock me on my butt if she wanted to. But she wasn’t taking even a playful swipe at me. Both arms slung around my back.

  “Dana, I tried to tell you a million times, but I didn’t think it mattered, because he didn’t like me back.”

  “You didn’t give him a chance to like you back. Clearly he got on board pretty quickly.” I felt her stiffen a little. “No, that’s a good thing.” I let her go. “It’s a great thing.”

  Jessalyn bit her lip to hide a smile. “I do like him.”

  “A lot.”

  “A lot,” she agreed. “But I didn’t want you thinking I’d gone around behind your back or something.”

  “What back? There was never anything between me and Nick, and if we’d both been honest with each other from the beginning, you and him would have happened a lot sooner.”

  “You’re making me stupid happy right now,” she said.

  “Just so long as he is too.”

  Her smile went a little dopey, and I smothered a laugh.

  “I’m getting something out of this too. If the two of you are together—you are, right?”

  “Oh, you know I locked that down.”

  “Then that means I get both my friends back, and it’s not even my birthday!” My grin didn’t even make it all the way onto my face before it died.

  Jessalyn understood why without a word. She settled beside me so we were both leaning against the side of my car.

  “It’s Coach’s birthday—I mean your dad’s—today. So you still don’t know if he knew?”

  “No, I know. At least, I think I know.” I told her about that last day in Chase’s garage. “I just can’t see him missing every moment of his son’s life and being able to live with himself. I mean, I know he cheated and that’s bad enough, but when I saw that picture from the day Brandon was born, I just knew.”

  “It still sucks, though. Are you going to tell him?”

  “I have to, don’t I?” I turned my head to her. “I’m certainly not going to do it on his birthday. Selena would never forgive me and I can’t do that to my mom. Not like that.”

  “So, then...when?”

  I didn’t have an answer for her.

  * * *

  Mom’s marble cake idea turned out solid light brown, which annoyed her to no end.

  “I watched three hours of YouTube videos. It should have worked,” she said.

  I felt another pang of guilt watching her slather icing on Dad’s birthday cake. She hated baking even more than she hated cooking. Dad had never had a homemade cake growing up, so every year since they’d gotten married—including the year Brandon was conceived—she made him one. She poured every bit of love she had for him into those cakes. She never held anything back from him, and if I could believe what she told me the other night, she never would.

  I heard the front door open and close, then Selena’s voice. One of the candles I was unboxing snapped in my hand. I took a step toward the back door even as I craned my neck to glimpse my sister for the first time in days.

  “We’re in the kitchen,” Mom called. She lowered her spatula when Selena appeared in the doorway. “Look,” Mom said as an aside to me, halting my quasi retreat. “She’s gotten taller. Doesn’t she look taller?”

  Not taller, but her expression when it met mine was wary and the corners of her mouth were taut before she shifted her gaze to Mom and smiled.

  “It hasn’t been that long, Mom.”

  “I haven’t seen you in days.” Mom pointed the spatula at her. “Try that again and I’ll paddle your cute little butt off. Now come here.”

  Selena obeyed and Mom peppered kisses on her face. “I missed you.” And that time her voice held a note of reproof.

  “I’m sorry, Mom.” Selena’s eyes flicked to me, and I took her meaning perfectly. It was my fault she’d had to stay away. I took another step toward the door. “I have an entire guest room to myself at Whitney’s, but I promise to come by more.”

  “Good.” Mom swatted Selena. “Go hug your sister. She missed you too.”

  Neither of us moved. We hadn’t been forced to hug and make up since we were little. A lot of that had to do with the fact that we almost never really fought, and when we did, we were terrible at holding a grudge. But we did as we were told, stiffly putting our arms around each other and releasing as quickly as we could get away with under Mom’s scrutiny.

  Mom sighed but went back to icing the cake and put us to work finishing dinner. I chopped by rote, eyeing Selena and looking for...I didn’t know, anything to indicate that she was willing to talk to me again.

  She said nothing.

  “Gavin coming?” Mom asked.

  “No, he had to work,” Selena said. “But I have our gift.” She nodded at a small wrapped cube on the table next to Mom’s present and the movie I’d picked out at the grocery store.

  My gift—the original one, anyway—was upstairs in my room in a sealed envelope on my desk. And it would stay there until...until I could bear to give it to him.

  Mom tossed me a lime after the vegetables were finished and I flinched catching it. She gave me a funny look but made no comment before re
turning to her own task. I couldn’t focus on what I was supposed to be making for dinner. I couldn’t focus on anything until I sliced my finger while chopping fresh coriander. I hissed as a drop of blood fell on the wooden cutting board. It wasn’t a deep cut, but Mom had my finger under cold water the second after I’d made a noise.

  “Mom, it’s fine.” I looked away as quickly as I dared. I couldn’t let her see me cry, which I felt perilously close to doing with my sister as far away from me as our kitchen would allow.

  “Let me get you a bandage,” Mom said, heading out of the kitchen. “Keep it under the water.”

  As soon as she left, I looked at Selena, who was studiously not looking at me.

  “I can’t stand you not talking to me, not right now.”

  She slapped a hand towel down on the counter. “What do you want from me?”

  I could only shake my head. “You don’t believe me, fine, but at least believe that I believe this.”

  But she turned her back on me again, and my sliced finger wasn’t a blip on the pain scale compared to the rest of me.

  I was still staring at her when Mom came back. Couldn’t Selena see that I wanted to be lying? That I’d give anything for her to be right about me being a jealous attention monger? I’d rather almost anything be true than Dad having had an affair and son.

  “Smells good,” Dad said, coming in and dropping a kiss on the back of Mom’s neck before she shooed him out to the dining room. My gaze trailed him, staying at the doorway even after he was gone, and in turn, I felt Mom’s on me.

  “You know what, I think I forgot one little thing upstairs. I’ll just be real quick.”

  Selena didn’t so much as glance in my direction while we finished cooking or when Mom returned, squeezing my shoulder with a quick, “Smile, it’s going to a happy night,” before leading us to the dinner table.

  Selena’s overly bright and enthusiastic demeanor only highlighted the contrast between the two of us as we ate. But it was Dad’s birthday, so Mom didn’t call me out on it. Instead she beamed at Dad, kissed him at least a dozen times throughout the meal, whenever the impulse struck her. I eventually had to stare at my plate to hide the tears that kept springing to my eyes.

  At last the cake was brought out, and it was covered in so many candles—way more than the forty-two for Dad’s age—and the OLD candle prominently placed in the center. Dad pursed his lips seeing it and Mom howled with laughter in response, almost dropping the cake until Selena and I jumped up to take it from her. Mom kept laughing until Dad pulled her into his lap and kissed her soundly. He kept her in his lap while we sang “Happy Birthday” to him and he blew out the candles. Mom started laughing again because it took him two tries to get them out.

  Selena was clapping and I was quietly dying watching them all. Smiling and so damn happy.

  “Okay, okay,” Mom said when the song ended. “I have to say something. Every year, on this day, I’m the one who gets the gift. I get the best husband, the best father and the best friend I could ever ask for.” Her eyes were shining as she gazed at him. She always cried on his birthday. “I don’t love you half as well as you love me.”

  “You love me just right,” Dad said, covering the hand she rested against his cheek. “So much more than I deserve.”

  I couldn’t duck my head fast enough that time.

  “Dana, mija.” She reached for my hand across the table.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, blinking away the moisture in my eyes. “I must be tired or something. Can we just open presents and then maybe I can go to bed early?”

  “Yes,” Mom said, smiling more than she should have considering I’d been nearly crying a moment ago. “I’ll grab them.” She scrambled from Dad’s lap, returning a moment later with the three presents I’d seen earlier but also a silver wrapped box that I hadn’t.

  “Who’s that one from?” Selena asked.

  Mom only smiled at her in response.

  Dad opened the Diamondback tickets from Mom first, then a watch from Selena that she’d had engraved. When he reached for my gift, Mom stopped him.

  “While I’m sure this is a really great movie, I think this is the gift Dana wants you to have.” She slid him the silver wrapped box, the size clothing usually comes in.

  I frowned as Dad began untying the ribbon on a gift I had neither bought nor wrapped.

  “I saw the envelope on your desk—I didn’t open it, I swear,” she added when I blanched. My heart fisted its way into my throat.

  “I just put it in a nicer box.”

  Horror froze me to my chair, iced over my limbs and kept me from lunging across the table and tearing it from his hands. Not like this. Not with Mom grinning and half-curled around his side. Not with Dad smiling as the silver wrapping paper floated to the floor.

  Dad lifted the lid and opened the plain white envelope. His smile faltered. “Dana, what is DNA Detective?”

  “No!” Selena shot to her feet. “It’s not—She’s not—” And then she looked at me, pure panic widening her eyes.

  The mood in the room shifted like a switch had been thrown. Mom was no longer smiling, and she’d gone stiff by Dad’s side. Everyone was looking at me when Selena started to cry.

  As though in slow motion, Mom and Dad turned their heads back to the paper as he unfolded it.

  “It was supposed to be cousins,” I said, choking on the words. “Distant cousins.”

  Dad had been reading as I spoke. The paper was in his hands, and he kept scanning it. I knew the second his eyes saw the top result. I could see it perfectly in my mind, the logo in the corner, the male and female avatar icons, the information listed beside each one: 4 percent match, 7 percent match, 3 percent match, on and on, up to the one that matched 47 percent with Dad—the “father or son” match.

  Tears were streaming down my face when I said it. “His name is Brandon. He’s eighteen years old, and he’s your son.”

  Chapter 40

  No one made a sound. Selena was sobbing silently but not a single word escaped her mouth. Mom was the first to speak.

  “That can’t be. They obviously made a mistake.” There was nothing grasping in her voice. She wasn’t trying to deny something her brain had instantly accepted. Her faith in Dad was unimpeachable. And unlike Selena when I’d told her, Mom didn’t lash out at me. “Honey, I’m so sorry. Is this why you’ve been so upset lately?” She came around to wrap her arms around me in my chair. “It’s not true, okay? Look at me, Dana.” It was impossible to resist the gentle command in her voice. “It’s not true.”

  She blurred in my vision as my eyes continued to well up and spill. “His mother’s name was Maggie McCormick and she got pregnant when you and Selena were in Texas.”

  Mom’s arms fell slack, releasing me. She stared straight ahead, not at me or Dad or the paper that slipped from his hands when he stood up only to fall to his knees.

  “Dad!” Selena was out of her chair and at his side in a second.

  “It can’t be,” he said, his voice hoarse. Like Mom’s, his eyes focused on nothing.

  Mom’s chin lifted and a wounded sound broke free. Dad was on his feet an instant later.

  “Adriana,” he said, reaching for her. Mom came to life for an instant, slicing her gaze to him. I’d never seen her look at him that way, not in the throes of their most heated argument. Her look cut me as deeply as it clearly did Dad. Drawing back, he aborted the gesture, but he couldn’t break free from her Gaze. It pinned him in place. The flare of anger died out, leaving despair and agony in the ashes. There was no fight in her eyes.

  “Mom,” I said, my chin quivering. “I’m so sorry.”

  She looked at me, blinking too fast, the only part of her to move. Then her arms jerked back into motion and she wrapped one around me while pulling Selena up and folding
us both in her arms.

  Selena sobbed uncontrollably into Mom’s embrace, the sounds coming just shy of wailing.

  Dad had never looked so small or so broken. I cried for him too. For what he’d lost and was actively losing before my very eyes.

  Mom spoke first into my hair, then Selena’s. “I love you and I love you.” Then she released us and walked out of the room and through the front door. A minute later I heard the car backing down the driveway.

  Dad said Mom’s name and then he was on his feet and moving through the dining room. He grabbed his keys on the way, and then he was running out the front door. I heard his car as he peeled out, and I ground out the ember of hope that had warmed for the tiniest second inside me at seeing him go after her. I remembered Mom’s expression too well for anything but ice and ash to fill me.

  Alone with my sister and Dad’s untouched birthday cake, I gave in to some long-forgotten childish impulse to reach out for Selena’s hand, but the second our fingers touched, she spun away from me. Her face was a blotchy, teary mess.

  “Why? Why did you have to do this?” It was as if she’d sucked all the energy from the room.

  Her words stabbed straight through my heart. I kept my knees locked as she grabbed her purse. “Please,” I said, watching her jerky movements. “Stay with me. Be mad, but don’t leave.”

  The front door slammed behind her. I let my knees buckle and I sank to the floor, surrounded by torn silver wrapping paper and nothing else.

  Chapter 41

  I was still sitting on the dining room floor when my cell phone rang two hours later. Recognizing the ringtone Mom had programmed for herself, “Enter Sandman” by Metallica, I dove for it. I held the phone to my ear with both hands. “Mom? Mom, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”